These Watergate quotes will inspire you.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging Watergate quotes, Watergate sayings, and Watergate proverbs.
Famous Watergate Quotes
- “The political lesson of Watergate is this: Never again must America allow an arrogant, elite guard of political adolescents to bypass the regular party organization and dictate the terms of a national election.” ~ Gerald R. Ford
- “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I earned everything I’ve got.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
- “The slow-rising central horror of “Watergate” is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn something from it.” ~ Hunter S. Thompson
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“You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
- “From Watergate, we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one – absolutely no one – is above the law.” ~ Leon Jaworski
- “I gave ’em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I’d have done the same thing.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
- “Watergate is a sad and tragic incident in our history. They were wrong, dead wrong, those men at Watergate. Men abused power, but the system still works. Men abused money, but the system still works. Men lied and perjured themselves, but the system still .” ~ John Wayne
- “The fact of the Watergate cover-up is not nearly as interesting as the step into making the cover-up. And when you understand the step, you understand that Richard Nixon lied. That he was a criminal.” ~ Bob Woodward
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“We’re not going to have another Watergate in our lifetime. I’m sure.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “You cannot live your life other than walking in the truth. Your means are as important as your ends.” ~ Charles Colson
- “Watergate was unique because it allowed the public to play its democratic role in expressing its outrage at the presidency. And as a result, for the first time in history a president resigned.” ~ Samuel Dash
- “Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented. Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it.” ~ John Dean
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“What did the president know, and when did he know it?” ~ Howard Baker
- “You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe I’m innocent. If you don’t, take my job.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
- “Watergate had become the center of the media’s universe, and during the remaining year of my presidency the media tried to force everything else to revolve around it.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
- “No one – absolutely no one – is above the law.” ~ Leon Jaworski
- “Until we have a better relationship between private performance and the public truth, as was demonstrated with Watergate, we as the public are absolutely right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and the misinformation which is the digest of our news.” ~ John le Carre
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“This we learn from Watergate that almost any creep’ll be glad to help the Government overthrow the people.” ~ Yip Harburg
- “I have a suggestion that I think would help fight serious crime. Signs. There are lots of signs for minor infractions: No Smoking, Stay Off the Grass, Keep Out, and they seem to work fairly well. I think we should also have signs for major crimes: Murder Strictly Prohibited, NO Raping People, Thank You for Not Kidnapping Anyone. It’s certainly worth a try. I’m convinced Watergate would never have happened if there had just been a sign in the Oval Office that said, Malfeasance of Office Is Strictly Against the Law, or Thank You for Not Undermining the Constitution.” ~ George Carlin
- “I’m just made differently. Man, I just love being an American, I love my country. But it happened to me during the Nixon time, especially pre-Watergate, that as I watched Nixon for the first time in my life I felt shame. I had to analyze myself. What is this emotion? I realized that my government was separate from my country. It was the first time I ever felt ashamed of the government, not the country.” ~ John Fogerty
- “This is a generation weaned on Watergate, and there is no presumption of innocence and no presumption of good intentions. Instead, there is a presumption that, without relentless scrutiny, the government will misbehave.” ~ Dee Dee Myers
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“Even Napoleon had his Watergate.” ~ Yogi Berra
- “I recently read some of the transcripts of Nixon’s Watergate tapes, and they spent hours trying to figure out who was leaking and providing information to Carl and myself.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “Watergate provides a model case study of the interaction and powers of each of the branches of government. It also is a morality play with a sad and dramatic ending.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “I can see clearly now… that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
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“Watergate is the great liberal illusion that you can have public virtue without private morality.” ~ Clare Boothe Luce
- “After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon’s tapes.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat more than anything else. I know I voted for Carter. Watergate taught me how bad the Republicans were.” ~ Dave Barry
- “I believe Watergate shows that the system did work. Particularly the Judiciary and the Congress, and ultimately an independent prosecutor working in the Executive Branch.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.” ~ Charles Colson
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“This story, I predict, will grow to be worse than Watergate. The American people need to have the answers.” ~ Curt Weldon
- “I think the media has become incredibly corrupt. We used to have a profound tradition of investigative journalism in the United States. Some journalists were real heroes, such as Bob Woodward who helped uncover the Watergate scandal. But today he is leading the opposite charge, trying to bring down the careers of people and score easy victories. In other words, those who used to bust the status quo have now become the status quo.” ~ Marianne Williamson
- “I will appoint an attorney general who will reform the Department of Justice like it was necessary after Watergate.” ~ Donald Trump
- “I think that in the minds of many, the press is being seen less and less as a neutral observer in the impeachment enterprise and more and more as participants, or even collaborators. On Media’s Participation In Watergate” ~ Pat Buchanan
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“Watergate left Washington a city ravaged by honesty.” ~ Russell Baker
- “Watergate showed more strengths in our system than weaknesses… The whole country did take part in quite a genuine sense in passing judgment on Richard Nixon.” ~ Archibald Cox
- “What was Watergate? A little bugging!” ~ Richard M. Nixon
- “Probably after Vietnam and Watergate, there was an increasing distrust of institutions, so that Jesus was still in, but the institutional church was no longer an attraction. So, I think that the dropping of the denominational label is to become more generic, less of a threat, less of a reminder of negative stereotypes if you’ve walked away from church.” ~ Eddie Gibbs
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“It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “Americans like to give their President the benefit of the doubt. If you look at the poll numbers, people knew Nixon was deeply involved in Watergate and stayed with him for a long time. It’s a natural tendency.” ~ John Dean
- “Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by “bagmen,” familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way.” ~ Jonathan Alter
- “Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch.” ~ Helen Thomas
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“The crusades of Vietnam and Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but perhaps to a majority of Americans.” ~ Howard Fineman
- “Nixon had some large achievements in foreign affairs. They will be remembered. But a president probably gets remembered for one thing, and Watergate will head the Nixon list, I suspect.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “This time, we’re living in such a crazy moment in history. People still write and talk about Watergate, which was such a huge, looming backdrop when I was coming of age and when I was a kid growing up. I think we’re living in one of those times right now where, in 20 years, people will be writing and talking about it.” ~ Patterson Hood
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“Post-Watergate morality, by which anything left private is taken as presumptive evidence of wrongdoing.” ~ Charles Krauthammer
- “I used to think that the Civil War was our country’s greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features in Watergate.” ~ Sam Ervin
- “The revival of the Right is as extraordinary as it would be if the public had demanded dozens of new nuclear plants in the days after the Three Mile Island disaster; if we had reacted to Watergate by making Richard Nixon a national hero.” ~ Thomas Frank
- “We`re a little bit low in the 1970s, right, post-Vietnam, Watergate era, malaise, all that, but this is more like the 1930s where the very notion of liberal democracy is being questioned, and that is disturbing.” ~ Daniel Fried
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“Watergate is not the sort of issue that changes the vote. I don’t know anyone who has changed their vote because of it.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press. The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate.” ~ Leonard Downie, Jr.
- “Well, a lot of people don’t want to be quoted. But keep in mind that Bob Woodward did all of his Watergate reporting with anonymous sources, and we know how that turned out.” ~ Edward Klein
- “Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.” ~ Billy Graham
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“I was dumbfounded by the stupidity of the Watergate break-in.” ~ Gerald R. Ford
- “Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “Maybe this Watergate is like the Old Testament. It was visited upon us and maybe were going to benefit from it.” ~ Nelson Rockefeller
- “No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency – a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
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“Watergate is an immensely complicated scandal with a cast of characters as varied as a Tolstoy novel.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “The facts of Watergate have been wildly exaggerated.” ~ Conrad Black
- “The official version of Watergate is as wrong as a Flat Earth Society pamphlet.” ~ G. Gordon Liddy
- “When you talk about presidents, loyalty is a great thing until it becomes a bad thing. Witness once again Watergate.” ~ Monica Crowley
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“Lawyers didn’t seriously get involved in the Watergate stories until quite late, when we realized we were on to something.” ~ Bob Woodward
- “Even before Watergate and his resignation, Nixon had inspired conflicting and passionate emotions.” ~ Stephen Ambrose
- “The influences in my life were all kind of politically, socially implanted. And then there was Watergate.” ~ Tobe Hooper
